Secret Sauce: The Founders' Original Recipe for Limited American Democracy

INTRODUCTION

WE ARE ALL LIBERTARIANS

In my time on the radio, I’ve interviewed hundreds of guests on topics ranging from educational choice to foreign wars; from the Federalist Papers to food freedom. This book features transcripts of some of my most memorable conversations.

I began hosting The Bob Zadek Show to explore what I believe to be the core principles – shared by almost all Americans – that made America great. The show’s motto is ideas, not attitude. The ideas from my guests in each chapter have been neglected by the majority of pundits, although they contain answers to the most pressing problems facing America today. Ideas have always been the secret sauce of the American experiment in republican democracy. Our founders risked their lives and their sacred fortunes for the idea of self-determination, yet they were also aware of the dangers and deficiencies of this ancient idea. As you will learn in the pages that follow, our government is based on numerous other ideas intended to preserve personal liberty. Democracy was always meant to be a means to secure the end of freedom – never as an end in itself. This was the founders’ understanding of democracy, and it is shared by today’s libertarians.

When I was living in New York, there was a blackout in the late 1970s. The entire city went dark, and for years afterward New Yorkers were asking each other, Where were you when the blackout occurred? Then I moved to San Francisco, and the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. Where were you when the earthquake happened, was the topic of conversation for many years.

I remember where I was and what I was doing when I became a libertarian. I was 16 years old, a social loser (never had a date, except in my mind), and was totally intimidated by girls. I had read a bit of Jack Kerouac, but didn’t understand it – it was just something remote to me. However, I was yearning for adventure. I was living in Queens, and I announced to my parents one day that I was going to go to this exotic place – Fire Island, off the south shore of Long Island. I told my mother, I’m off. I’m going to go to Fire Island for the weekend. My plan was to take the ferry across with a couple of dollars in my pocket, and to sleep on the beach with this blanket that I brought slung over my shoulder like a hobo. My mother forbade it, and I said, Why?

She said, Because I’m your mother.

It made no sense to me. Wait a minute, I said, "The fact that you’re my mother is irrelevant. I want to go to Fire Island. Either convince me on the merits that I shouldn’t go, or else I’m going. We fought about it a bit and she didn’t convince me on the merits. It seemed an arbitrary infringement of my freedom (although, I never would have used those words when I was 16, and certainly not when thinking about my mother, who was arbitrary in any event). I remember telling her on our front porch, You tell me bad things are going to happen – it’s much better for me if I experience those bad things myself and learn on my own that you were right, rather than blindly follow your advice."

Off I went to Fire Island. I had the most absurdly boring and lonesome weekend imaginable. I slept on the front porch of somebody’s house. It was cold and uncomfortable. I did not sleep on the beach as I imagined. Despite the dearth of thrills, I came back flush with this feeling of freedom. Bad things did not happen to me despite not obeying my mother.

My mother didn’t get it. She was hardly a libertarian – she was a just a strict mother (not quite a despot, but close enough in my world). I think that was the day that I became a libertarian in a rebellious 16-year-old way. I certainly wasn’t focusing on free markets and limited government. I was focusing on limited Mom, but the principles were the same.

Where were you when you first became a libertarian, and what does it all mean to you in today’s economic and political environment?

Back in 2010, the Republicans published a document with great fanfare, called the Pledge to America, stating: We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by the framers. Republicans talk about honoring the original intent. Those are red-meat words for conservatives (which I am not) and Republicans. Whose original intent are we talking about? Republicans would say, The original intent of the framers. I say, hmm … let’s see. Thomas Jefferson was a framer, sure. Alexander Hamilton was a card-carrying framer. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton agreed on nothing – nothing – when it comes to the Constitution. Therefore, what does the original intent of the framers mean if we are talking about the original intent of Alexander Hamilton? George W. Bush and President Obama were probably following the original intent of Alexander Hamilton, who favored a very strong and powerful central government, but not of Thomas Jefferson.

The words original intent of the framers are a hollow, empty, shallow political phrase with no substance. When we talk about the intent of the founders, which founders are we talking about? If you say, No, the original intent of James Madison, he wrote the Constitution – or at least the first draft. Let’s take his original intent. Well, James Madison was furious at the final product, which we call the Constitution. He was grossly disappointed in many ways as to how it came out, because the Constitution was a political document. It was a profound compromise that was made in order to get the country created, which was the goal of every founder, even if they couldn’t agree on the principles. There were parts of it that Madison hated and that did not represent his worldview, although he vehemently supported and lobbied extensively for the enactment of the Constitution through The Federalist Papers.

It gets even more complicated. James Madison had strongly held beliefs about how powerful the executive branch should be, and he changed his mind three times on this crucial issue between 1790 and 1800. If he couldn’t even agree with himself over a ten-year period, then which original intent and which founder are we talking about?

Here’s my point: We are reliving today, in an exciting way, the same fight the founders had in secrecy from May to September of 1787. The founders had a set of principles, and they were struggling to draft a constitution which embodied those principles. They created a country, which has worked vigorously and will continue to work. The country is stable and will survive. The Constitution works.

However, the principles on which the Constitution is based have less and less to do with the Constitution itself, as interpreted by the courts. Therefore, if you care, you should not vote according to this empty fealty to the framers’ original intent, but rather the principles that drove the framers, which are clearly libertarian principles. The test of whether any political party gets it right is not how they see or interpret the Constitution, but how true or untrue they are to libertarian principles.

If the Republicans want to win over the hearts and minds of libertarians, who make up roughly a quarter of the electorate, they must honor libertarian principles. Taking an oath to the Constitution as originally intended is an empty oath, which tells us nothing about what they believe. We have to examine their loyalty to libertarian principles.

What are libertarian principles? They’re very simple and I think everybody out there within the sound of my voice (as they say in radio) subscribes generally to libertarian principles. They can be ticked off in a few moments.

Individual rights: Libertarians believe that the smallest unit in government is an individual – not a group. Therefore, laws are tested insofar as they affect individuals, not groups. The dignity of every individual matters. No group identification. No disabled, blacks, Hispanics, poor, rich, middle-class, male or female. American is the only classification, and we are all individuals. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He changed the word property, which was a Lockean concept, to pursuit of happiness. He wanted to include virtue and other strongly held principles. Furthermore, we have the rights of life, liberty, and property because we are human beings. They are not rights granted to us by the government. The government doesn’t give us rights. No way! We give the government rights. Individual rights is a core principle of libertarian beliefs. In short, rights preceded government.

Rule of law: Laws are created only to protect person and property, i.e., to protect our individual rights. That’s the only legitimate purpose of government. Laws aren’t created to transfer wealth from one person to another. They are created to protect our inherent rights as human beings and that is the only purpose of laws.

Limited government: Libertarians abhor power. We all know the Lord Acton quote, Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We fear any accumulation of power, which is why the framers drafted a Constitution with checks and balances: to limit the power of government and of each of its branches, and to divide power between the states and the Federal Government.

Finally, the principle of free markets.

Who out there doesn’t believe in those principles? In trying to heal the wounds between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists in his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said, We are all Federalists. We are all Anti-Federalists. I close this segment by saying, We are all libertarians.

My full archive of shows is available at BobZadek.com/subscribe. Every week I interview a really smart guest. Hear my show streaming live or on the radio every Sunday morning. Check your listings at BobZadek.com/listen-live.

1 – WAS THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION A MISTAKE?

Guest: Thomas Fleming

Interview Date: October 21, 2012

Bob Zadek: In my time on the radio, I have sometimes spoken with unconditional praise for the Constitution and its drafters – specifically James Madison. I have bemoaned Supreme Court decisions and efforts by Congress to alter what I perceive to be the original intent of the Constitution.

However, after I started reading about the ratification process – the four and half months in Philadelphia beginning in September 1787, after the founders had drafted a constitution with important compromises – I became curious. The framers created a process in which each colony was invited to form a convention to review the Constitution, discuss it, and decide whether to ratify it. The drafters concluded that once the Constitution was ratified by nine colonies, then at least there would be a country with those nine colonies, plus any other colonies who chose to ratify afterwards. Ultimately, 12 of the 13 colonies ratified, and all 13 ultimately became states. Thus, we have the United States.

Specifically, I started to read the arguments of the patriots who opposed ratification – the Anti-Federalists. Here were some pretty smart men: George Mason, Edmund Randolph, Robert Yates in New York, George Clinton, DeWitt Clinton, Patrick Henry, and many others. They were as patriotic as those who supported ratification of the Constitution. In reading the arguments and predictions of the Anti-Federalists, I said to myself, Oh, my God – the Anti-Federalists were right! What they feared would happen after ratification, did, in fact, happen.

That called into question much of what I had believed, and I found myself confused. To straighten myself out, and to share the history of ratification with you, I sought refuge with America’s (in my opinion) greatest living historian. Thomas Fleming has been on my show before, and I’m happy to welcome him again. Tom has written close to 60 books on the American Revolution, the Civil War, Harry Truman and others. Each one of his books is a must read. When I committed myself to learning all that I could about the American Revolution and American history, I started to accumulate documentaries dealing with the period of our country’s founding. So often, Tom was right there on the screen. He didn’t know it, but Tom was my private tutor for years.

I’m happy to have Tom on the show to discuss the process of ratification of the Constitution and specifically, how the Anti-Federalists could have been so right on so many points. It was hardly the pure process that one would imagine; it was intensely political, with a lot of nasty business going on as well. Perhaps the ends justified the means, but you will decide.

The Meeting at Mt. Vernon: A Prelude to the Constitution

BZ: Tom, thanks so much for joining me on the show. I hope we will discover before we end the show some lessons about political life today that can be derived from the intensely political period starting roughly from